Chapter 7 - THE CANADIAN TUNDRA PURSUITThe roar of the dual-engine snowmobiles echoed across the vast, white void of the northern wilderness.
We were charging through the dense pine forests of the Canadian border, tracking the deep ski tracks left by Rocco’s fleeing snowmobiles. The temperature had plunged to twenty below zero, the freezing wind cutting through our heavy gear like razors.
I rode directly behind Dante, holding a blood bag against my warm chest under my heavy parka, running an IV line straight into Dante’s arm while he steered the heavy machine with one hand at sixty miles per hour.
"You're insane, Dr. Miller!" Dante yelled over the engine roar, his voice strained against the bitter wind.
"I’m a trauma nurse!" I shouted back, shielding my face from the flying ice. "We don't let patients die on our watch, even if the patient is a stubborn mob boss with a death wish!"
Through the trees ahead, the forest opened up into a massive, frozen river gorge. Three red snowmobiles were flying across the ice ahead of us—Rocco and his remaining bodyguards.
"There they are!" Dante growled, twisting the throttle to maximum power.
Our snowmobile surged forward, closing the distance rapidly. Sensing the pursuit, one of Rocco’s bodyguards turned in his seat, aiming a submachine gun back at us.
TAK-TAK-TAK-TAK!
Bullets kicked up spray fountains of ice right in front of our treads.
"Hold on!" Dante yelled.
He pulled a heavy, high-caliber revolver from his coat. Without slowing down, he leaned sideways, taking aim over the bouncing handlebars.
BANG!
The shot rang out like a cannon. The rear tire of the bodyguard's snowmobile instantly detonated, sending the vehicle violently flipping over the ice. The driver was launched fifty feet into the air, crashing motionless into a wall of granite rocks.
Only two snowmobiles remained—Rocco and his head of security.
Rocco’s vehicle suddenly veered off the main river course, charging up a steep, icy incline toward an abandoned, dilapidated paper mill perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking a massive hydro-electric dam.
"He's running into the mill!" Dante shouted, slowing down as we reached the base of the structure.
We dismounted, pulling our weapons as the freezing wind howled through the broken glass windows of the industrial ruin. The heavy machinery inside was rusting, long abandoned, covered in thick sheets of dark ice.
"Clara, stay behind me," Dante whispered, his body tense as a hunting wolf. "Rocco is cornered. A cornered animal is at its most dangerous."
We crept through the dark, cavernous interior of the mill. The sound of dripping water and creaking steel echoed through the empty shadows.
Suddenly, a voice echoed from the catwalks twenty feet above us.
"You always were too brave for your own good, Dante!"
We looked up. Rocco stood on the narrow rusty steel catwalk, holding a detonator switch in his left hand and a heavy automatic pistol in his right. Blood was streaming down the side of his face from the helicopter crash, but his eyes were wide with unhinged, manic energy.
"Look around you, brother!" Rocco laughed, his voice echoing off the corrugated iron walls. "This whole facility is rigged with old industrial demolition charges! One click of this thumb, and this entire mill collapses into the hydro-dam below!"
Dante stepped forward, shielding me with his body, his pistol trained directly on Rocco’s chest.
"Put the switch down, Rocco," Dante said calmly. "It’s over. Your men are captured, your money is frozen, and your empire is dead."
"My empire?!" Rocco screamed, his face twisting in pure rage. "I built this syndicate! I laundered the money! I made the political deals! But Dad gave the crown to you! Just because you were born two minutes earlier!"
Rocco pointed his gun down at Dante.
"If I can't have the crown... NO ONE WILL!"
Rocco pulled the trigger.
BANG!
Dante squeezed his trigger at the exact same instant.
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BANG!
Both gunshots rang out simultaneously, echoing like lightning strikes inside the empty mill.
